Close enough for government work. In all seriousness, that is a lot more than I imagined. I knew the Canadians participated in WW2, but not to the extent.
We were rather involved. When called, we deliver. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Canada_during_World_War_II Canada's military was active in every theatre of war, though most battles occurred in Italy,[5] Northern Europe,[6] and the North Atlantic. Over the course of the war, 1.1 million Canadians served in the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Of these more than 45,000 lost their lives and another 54,000 were wounded.[7] The financial cost was $21,786,077,519.12, between the 1939 and 1950 fiscal years.[8] By the end of the War, Canada had the world's fourth largest air force,[9] and third largest navy.[10] As well, the Canadian Merchant Navy completed over 25,000 voyages across the Atlantic.[11] Canadians also served in the militaries of various Allied countries. By D-Day, June 6, 1944, the landings at Normandy were accomplished by two beachheads made by the American forces at Omaha and Utah, two by British forces, Sword and Gold, and a final one at Juno made by the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division.
A britt is a european girls name............a brit is someone from britain...like me. I know that RAF pilots do some flying in the US, but isnt that mainly because as Britain is such a densely populated area, that there isnt enough free area for our pilots to get the full range of training they need?
What is even more of an accomplishment is the costs involved, down to the 12 cents, as you may have noticed.
But the RAAF website said Australia's airforce was the fourth largest. When the armistice with Japan was signed on 15 August 1945, the RAAF in the Pacific had a total strength of 131,662 personnel and 3,187 front line aircraft. First Tactical Air Force, the major operational formation, had grown to 18,894 men in April 1945 and operated 20 operational squadrons. In addition to its execution of numerous air operations, the RAAF had also pioneered the development and operation of radar and operated its own shipping in the South West Pacific Area. The RAAF legacy of the Second World War is a proud one, with it now the world's 4th largest Air Force. http://www.airforce.gov.au/History/ww2.aspx So who is right, the RAAF or wikipedia?
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I remember watching those RAF pilots fly their 'Jaguars' , was mighty impressive , but I don't know how they train , or much else about them. but for sheer guts , those A-10 hog pilots just let it all hang out . .
don't really know and don't really care. 4th largest no its 5th largest. What I do know is that our beer tastes better than that fosters crap you guys rave about.
Australians rave about Fosters? LOL! You can't even get that stuff in Australia since it's all sold in Europe and North America.
It's funny to see a Canadian and an Australian going at it. If it's any consolation, you guys have good special forces units. I remember an Aussie helped to train my unit way back when. He was cool as hell.
Nah. We're the best. That's why they come here. But the Brits are definitely second best. The Brits have the second best military on the planet, in my opinion.
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I was thinking about this further, and came to the conclusion that victory in such a limited 'like-for-like' situation would probably just depend on who 'got it right on the day'. Both air forces have excellent and well trained pilots, tacticians, support and so on, and both would be using machinery of a comparable standard (but with different attributes), and both would be able to identify relative strengths and weaknesses of themselves and each other (both knowing each other's capabilities pretty well). Both forces would obviously be able to inflict damage on the other. Who would actually win would depend on the details of individual tactics and techniques, and the way they were able to execute them during the actual battle. Realistically, I don't think it's something that would be predictable in advance, if it were being conducted strictly on an equal numbers basis. Like 2 sports teams of a roughly equal standard of players and coaches, winning the game would be a matter of tactics, luck and other variables on the day - in fact, the biggest mistake either could probably make (and I'm quite sure both 'coaches' would warn all their 'players' about it!) would be to underestimate the opposition and assume themselves to be 'superior'. However, if it came to actual all-out war (conventional, obviously), or even a real 'air war', the US quite obviously has the superior firepower and size in its armed forces (and air force) overall. The UK forces would, I think, not be 'quickly and easily overrun' without US losses in battle or anything like that, but the US would quite clearly have the resources to completely overwhelm the UK over time (and for the size of country, and the the money the US spends on its military, so it should!). No question about that. What would be an interesting hypothetical situation, of course (not something I'd like to see for real!), would be a war between the USA and the entire united EU armed forces. The US spends more on its military than all of the 27 EU countries combined (apparently $692 billion compared with $406 billion), but the EU forces in total are larger (the US having apparently around 1.5 million in total (with about the same reserve), with the EU having slightly more than that in 'land' forces alone (with 4.5 million reserves) - these figures are from wiki, so I make no claims about their absolute accuracy!). I guess that would mean that overall the US would be the smaller force, but with the better equipment available to them (but not, I would think, so much better that it would be arrows against the lightning or whatever!). Interesting situation.
Good post 'cenydd' ........i agree with your observations, same as mine, but i didnt go into so much detail.